Tuesday, May 21, 2013

I guess
because it’s May—the end of the school year, and the end of the regular TV
season—but I’ve been thinking about endings. I watched the season finale of my
current favorite, Doctor Who, this
past week, and as the episode ended (right after I yelled the name of the exec
producer: Moffattttt!!!!!! Captain-Kirk style, and scared my dog) I was left
with way more questions than answers. I hopped online, but the rest of
cyberspace seemed to be just as confused as me. A lot of folks have theories,
but none of us will know if we’re on the right track until November. Which
seems like such a long time to wait.

I have a
love-hate relationship with cliffhangers and open endings. On the one hand, I
hate waiting and not knowing. But on the other, how often in life do all the
loose ends really get tied up? People are always talking about closure, but a
lot of times we have to just move on without it. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory the other week,
Sheldon freaked out when Leonard casually mentioned that Alphas was cancelled, calling the SyFy channel in a panic because
he had to know what happened to the characters, and saying,

“They have
to help the viewers let go. Firefly
did a movie to wrap things up. Buffy the Vampire Slayer continued on as
a comic book. Heroes gradually lowered the quality season by season
until we were grateful it ended.”

Penny. Penny....Penny.

I’ve been mourning the untimely death of Firefly
since 2003, but this past year at the ten-year anniversary, one of the
showrunners, Tim Minear, described his and Joss Whedon’s plans for the series—a
horrific story about Inara that I’m glad I never got to/had to see. The closure I thought I wanted might have
retroactively ruined the show for me, the way a bad ending sometimes can.

When a
series is caught unaware, and there’s crap-all for resolution, it is really
annoying. But I think it’s even worse when the writers do know, and they
fail to deliver a real ending. Of course, endings, just like every other part
of the story, are in the eye of the beholder. But for most of us, when we love
characters, seeing them happy and at least on their way toward what they want
in life is hard to not like. A decent ending can make up for a lot—Roswell,
for example: the third season was a hot mess. But the final ten minutes or so
saw the whole gang together, Max and Liz married, and a happy song played as
they all drove off in the distance. And though we were all worried about Harry's fate, J.K. gave us all a lovely epilogue with a happy Harry and company.

It’s
not just alien and wizard teens who want to be happy and on the right path, though—it’s what
we all want. In fantasy and SF stories, the writers can always pull a
rabbit out of their hat and fix things for the characters. Part of why I was so
confused about the final Doctor Who ep is because there are sort of twelve of
him. In the real world there’s only one of each of us. Sometimes we feel like
we’re on that right path, but how can we ever really know? The stories that are
the most true to life don’t offer that much closure.

A contemporary
novel has to have a last page, but does it have to have an ending? Think
about Holden Caulfield at the end of The Catcher in the Rye. We sort of
hope he’s on his way--that he'll go to a new school, make friends, get good grades--but we'll never really know. In a way the lack of clear resolution keeps Holden pure: he
never becomes something else at the end of the story, so he’ll forever be that
boy watching his little sister going around and around on the carousel.

There's no grand final curtain—at least while you’re still alive and kicking. Joss Whedon said it best
this past week on Twitter: a follower tweeted that his life would be complete
if @jossactual retweeted him. The reply: No, your life will be complete when
you die.

At
least I think it was Joss—this being real life, I’ll probably never know for
sure.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Thanks Game of Thrones. Now it’s super awkward:
I have to like/root for a character who pushed a little boy off the top of a
tower without a second thought.

Is it possible that an
actual human could change this much?
To go from extreme selfish bastard to the kind of guy who’d jump, one-handed
and unarmed, into a bear pit? This moment got me thinking about the way long
running series tend to try to redeem the irredeemable character.

IRL, if someone rips the
heart out of guy’s chest—like Damon on The
Vampire Diaries—it’s not okay.
But then again, there are no vampires—or werewolves—in real life. So maybe when
you’re dealing with the supernatural, all bets are off. This rule would allow Game of Thrones to turn Jamie Lannister
into a super nice guy. Or a white walker, or possibly even a dragon. The only
really important rule in fantasy is that everyone must have some sort of
accent, preferably British.

Actual people are a whole
different story. A few years ago I was clearing out my old room, sifting through the detritus of my childhood:
cassette tapes by the hundreds, an alarming number of stuffed animals—and then
I found my fifth grade journal. Soon after finding it, I had no choice but to
destroy the thing—because it was far too revealing of the fact that my
personality from fifth grade to now is essentially the same. True, there are
loads of surface changes. I can drive, I’m not freakishly shy. I’m much taller.
But in essentials, I fear, I am very much as I was at ten.

Maybe people only change
significantly when they go through something extremely drastic. Or when
something gets chopped off. I did undergo a tragic perm my senior year of high
school which led to a substantial amount of hair breakage, but that’s probably
not the same thing. Characters in books and shows tend to have to deal with a
lot worse than bad hair decisions. Maybe life-altering events can change the
essential nature of a person. Or maybe not. But it sure does make for
compelling TV. It’s also easier to forgive the cute ones, who always seem end
up cast as the bastards with-a-secret-heart-of-gold. I, for one, fall for it
every time. Even though I’ve stayed the
same, I love a good transformation story.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The other week I, along with many others, stumbled
across one of the many stories that accompanied the release of Gwyneth
Paltrow’s new cookbook: I’m Better at
Eating Than You. It’s not actually called that, unfortunately—it’s actually
called, “It’s All Good,” which seems like the wrong name for a couple of
reasons. One, that’s a phrase usually uttered by folks who genuinely don’t care
whether the wings they ordered come out mild or spicy, or if the beer is room
temperature. “It’s all good,” those folks say. And we believe them. These are
not the type of people who specify that they want not salt but coarse
Mediterranean sea salt.

The second reason this name is just weird is that according to Gwynnie—it most
certainly is NOT all good. Some of the stuff on her no-fly food list includes:
coffee, eggs, shellfish, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, wheat, meat, and sugar.
@%$#! Potatoes?! Coffee?! Sugar?! Her no list includes my entire diet except
for chicken, incidentally.

The stylish and stick-like actress has taken a lot
of heat for the book, in which she shares the gluten-free vegan-organic recipes
she uses at home. She’s been accused of being out of touch with regular folks
who don’t have the money (or time) to acquire some kind of fancy honey that
runs twenty-five bucks a jar, but which Gwyn insists is the best. Yahoo Shine
blogger Beth Greenfield figured out that a day of her recipes would cost
hundreds of dollars to make for a family of four.

Of
course she’s out of touch with regular folks, though. Her father was a film
director and her mother’s a famous actress. She never mastered the art of
existing solely on ramen noodles (forget the no-carb diet—raise your hand if
you’ve ever been stuck with the ALL carb diet!). Guarantee her parents never
took her “furniture shopping” on large-item pick up day. The only tawdry
experience she’s likely had to endure was Shallow
Hal.

I don’t hate her for being out of touch, or for
having skinny genes. But I can also sort of see why her whole lifestyle
brand-situation rankles some people. The text of a book like this one urges the
reader to be better—but the subtext is:
the choices you are making now are wrong.

As a one of those regular folks, I can tell you on
a good day, I manage to not go to Chipotle for dinner. And don’t get me started
on lunch. The other day during lunch period, while grading papers, I ate a
remarkable collection of crap including, but not limited to, a stack of
Pringles and some of the candy I keep in my desk to use for prizes. Sometimes
it’s hard to get through a ridiculously busy day, let alone Be Your Best Self. So
even when I’m trying to do better—like I’ve been trying to stay away from soda
for the past month or so—I still tend to scoff at people who say they get up at
five am to juice, or who’d go to a raw food restaurant on purpose.

The
other night on Bill Maher guest Jimmy Kimmel talked about Paltrow. He said
people get bent out of shape because she’s perfect, even what she eats is perfect. And yet: the book's current overall sales rank on Amazon is #11. Which just goes to show that life
really is just like high school.
Everybody rags on the prettiest girl in school for being a snob, and then
everybody votes for her for prom queen. In such a complicated world, I suppose
it’s a comfort when you realize that sometimes life is exactly like eleventh
grade.